MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Reps. Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  We really appreciate it.  We`ll be watching you in the hearing tomorrow. 
 
And joining our discussion now are two Democratic members of Congress, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.  He is a member of the House Oversight and the House Intelligence Committees. 
 
And Congressman Ro Khanna of California.  He`s a member of the House Oversight Committee. 
 
And, Congressman Khanna, let me start with you.  Your reaction to this new development that Robert Mueller expressed basically immediate disagreement with the way William Barr characterized his report. 
 
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA):  Well, this is not a complex legal issue.  It`s actually common sense.  If a law student engaged in this kind of dishonesty, they would be kicked out for academic fraud.  If a lawyer engaged in this kind of dishonesty, they would be disbarred. 
 
Bill Barr needs to resign and he needs to resign tomorrow, but I think he knew that he was going to have to resign and he said it was worth the cost of obfuscating and giving the president breathing room, and he intentionally took that hit to put a false narrative out there. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Presidential candidate Julian Castro has also called for Barr`s resignation. 
 
Congressman Krishnamoorthi, your reaction to this breaking news tonight? 
 
REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL):  Well, I think that at this point, it`s all the more reason why we need the full unredacted Mueller report.  We need this letter.  I don`t want a summary of this letter --
 
O`DONNELL:  Right. 
 
KRISHNAMOORTHI:  -- from Mr. Barr.  I want the letter from Mr. Mueller. 
 
Then, finally, we need Mr. Mueller to testify himself.  As you know, the House Intelligence Committee has also requested his testimony. 
 
The fact that the Justice Department may be standing in the way of his testifying is yet another act of obstruction, in my opinion, and now we need to vindicate our rights to investigate, whether that means going to court or not. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Let`s listen to more of William Barr`s testimony with Charlie Crist. 
 
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O`DONNELL:  Congressman Khanna, when you watch these, these answers take on new meaning. 
 
KHANNA:  Well, and he`s trying to be so slippery. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Mmm-hmm. 
 
KHANNA:  And trying to obfuscate.  But it`s not going to work. 
 
I mean, the American people have common sense.  They know that he went before the Senate and he lied.  I mean, he said that Bob Mueller didn`t give him any indication of disagreement.  That is just untrue. 
 
And at some point, we have to distinguish fact from spin, truth from untruth.  And this is obvious a case as you can get. 
 
O`DONNELL:  What can Jerry Nadler do to get Robert Mueller`s testimony if the attorney general is standing in the way? 
 
KRISHNAMOORTHI:  Well, he would subpoena Robert Mueller.  And, again, from Supreme Courts down to lower courts, they`ve all said that, A, Congress has the right to investigate, B, they have the right to issue subpoenas, and, C, they have the right to hold people in contempt. 
 
And so I think those are all rights that now we have to exercise because at this point, we know that the president has already challenged the power of the purse by declaring an emergency with regard to spending money on a border wall, and now he`s challenging it on a right of oversight.  And he`s not the king.  He`s the president.  And the president is accountable to the people and to the representatives, namely in Congress. 
 
O`DONNELL:  And, Congressman Khanna, the standoff that we`re seeing here is something that we really haven`t seen.  There was a very kind of a brief version of this during the Nixon investigation, but what was -- what was so unique -- is so unique about the Trump administration is it seems impervious to political pressure, because it was, in fact, political pressure that forced a lot of the cooperation from the Nixon administration. 
 
It also forced certain forms of cooperation out of Bill Clinton when he was being investigated.  Political pressure has always been a factor in every other administration during any investigation.  It doesn`t seem to be a factor here.  They don`t seem to care at all about the political pressures. 
 
KHANNA:  Well, you`re right.  I mean, Sam Erwin, who was chairing the Senate Select Committee famously threatened to send the sergeant at arms to get some of Nixon`s White House aides and that shamed them enough that the White House aides complied. 
 
But here you`re talking about an administration that has no shame.  People view as being held in contempt as a badge of honor as opposed to a career ending embarrassment then what do you do?  My view is similar to Representative Krishnamoorthi, there is only one person who this country will trust, and that`s Bob Mueller. 
 
We need to bring him in front of congress, let him tell the facts on live television, and I think that`s the only thing that`s going to resolve this. 
 
O`DONNELL:  And Mueller`s complaint to Barr was that what Barr`s summary did was it undermined, it undermined the public confidence in the special counsel, and that`s what the special counsel is all about. 
 
KRISHNAMOORTHI:  That`s right.  He complained about the fact that it didn`t capture the context, nature or substance of the Mueller report.  Apart from that, he had no problems with the Barr summary, apparently. 
 
But, you know, the point -- the point of this whole situation is that at this point we don`t want anymore filters.  We want the Mueller genuine draft.  We want the full unredacted report.  We want Mueller on the Hill and we want this letter before us by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, I think Mr. Nadler has asked for. 
 
I think that`s very reasonable.  I think we should have it tonight.  But no more filters.  We don`t want --
 
O`DONNELL:  "The Washington Post" saw it but Congress hasn`t. 
 
KRISHNAMOORTHI:  Yes. 

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